Disappeared News

Saturday, March 10, 2012

The Hawaii News Now reported that “Mike and Georgia Young's 50th wedding anniversary vacation was NOT supposed to end huddled, soaking wet at a Red Cross shelter. "The rain actually looked like waves of snow. It was coming down so hard," recalls Mike Young.

Around midnight Monday, their Hawaiian Airlines flight to Denver got canceled. Hotels were sold-out. Taxis had stopped. They were among 20 passengers planning to wait it out overnight at Lihue airport - until both airline and security employees told them they couldn't stay.

"We kept asking him, "Well, where are we supposed to go?'" explains Mike Young, "and he kept saying, ‘All I know is: security is saying you're going to have to leave'."

To compound problems, the husband's medication was still in his checked luggage. They say a Securities guard told them to leave immediately - or else. "So that's when he said, 'We'll call the police. We will call the police and have you forcibly removed'," say both the husband and wife as they finished each other's sentence.

A passerby drove them to the Red Cross shelter, but since it was so late, all the cots were already taken. Their golden anniversary celebration ended on a slab of concrete.”

What happened to the other 18 stranded people?

The incident reminded me of a related incident that took place a few years ago at Honolulu International Airport. Our flight to the mainland was scheduled for departure at 9 pm. The plane we were to have taken broke down and the airline had to fly a replacement plane in from Los Angeles. The new departure time was set for 2 am.

From midnight to 2 am, passengers tried to sleep. But every 10-15 minutes there was a loud public announcement over the speaker system which would remind the military that up until midnight they could stay in a special military hospitality room.

It wasn’t until we were in Texas that anyone apologized for the delay. It wasn’t the airline, the airport or the government, just a compassionate airline employee.

On a related issue, over the years the Hawai`i Department of Transportation (DOT) has shown an unwillingness to follow State Law. So this year the State House passed a number of bills to exempt DOT from having to follow numerous state laws.

This appears to be the fault of Hawaiian Airlines. Hawaiian Airlines is running a for-profit operation which profited off the elderly couple. Hawaiian Airlines should have contacted senior members of the airport staff for help. The clearly didn't do everything possible to help this couple. This is another instance where a private company drops the balls and shares the blame with a government agency.

Everyone dropped the ball. Millions can be wasted on advertising Hawaii, but this type of incident, sewage spills, dirty bathrooms is what needs to be the focus for change.There should have been a plan for this type of occurance, cancelations...